Last year I wrote here about returning to some of the places in South Essex where I started my conservation career. Yesterday I had the opportunity for a couple of hours to visit the Langdon Ridge again, at One Tree Hill Country Park, and as I reported before, I was again very pleasantly surprised, seeing the site not just as an ecologist and botanist, but someone for whom invertebrates have become a much more important part of my natural consciousness.

Yes, of course the plants are still impressive, with Yellow Rattle in abundance, alongside Common Spotted Orchids, Corky-fruited Water-dropwort and Salsify, among many others.

But even with a chill north-easterly breeze and patchy cloud keeping temperatures down and suppressing insect activity, all it took was to find the lee side of a hedge or scrub patch, and there was plenty to see, from Burnet Companion and Speckled Yellow moths  and other Lepidoptera …

… bugs, beetles and sawflies …

… scorpion-flies everywhere …

… spiders …

… to a plethora of flies of all description. Just check out those wonderfully plumed middle legs on the male Dolichopus popularis long-legged flies!

Essex as a county is much maligned, especially the south, but in wildlife terms, the enclaves of diversity are still with us, for all to appreciate.